Chapter Summaries

Duma offered to grant Alfonso’s wish in exchange for a price, and Alfonso wished to earn a legendary feat in the war between the Starlight Empire and the Skeleton Alliance. Duma said Alfonso could gain High Tier strength and arcane knowledge by losing a tiny bit of memory, leaving the price to be explained.

• Duma revealed that he had been speaking nonsense before asking Alfonso whether he had summoned him.
• Duma told Alfonso to state his deepest wish and warned that he had only one chance.
• Alfonso reconsidered his resentment toward his family and realized his father had brought him to the battlefield to help him earn military merit.
• Alfonso wished to accomplish a feat in the war so great that future generations would always associate his name with the Empire.
• Alfonso offered everything he owned and his soul, but Duma said those were not enough and proposed granting him High Tier strength and arcane knowledge in exchange for a tiny bit of memory.

Duma offered Alfonso a cheaper way to fulfill his wish by combining it with another person's similar wish, then explained that summoning him did not make him Alfonso's exclusive servant. He left Alfonso with a strict deadline to choose between sharing the wish or paying with his entire past and future.

• Alfonso prepared to accept Duma's offer to possess his body, but Duma told him there was a second option.
• Duma explained that Alfonso could combine his order with another person's overlapping wish and potentially pay only half his lifespan.
• Alfonso questioned why Duma would serve anyone besides the person who summoned him, and Duma explained the difference between summoning and sustaining a demon.
• Duma used Demonic Whisper to tell Alfonso that nineteen other people were summoning him and warned that the offer would expire soon.
• Duma gave Alfonso the choice of sacrificing his past and future for his wish or sharing the wish through combined orders, then began waiting for his decision.

Viscount Alfonso agreed to share his wish with another customer to reduce the price, then met Nuowa Leo Stral, a prince presumed dead for over a century. Alfonso realized Duma had likely arranged for him to help Nuowa reclaim the throne, leaving him bound to a rebellion he had not intended to join.

• Duma persuaded Alfonso that sharing a wish would cost less, and Alfonso signed the contract.
• Duma summoned Nuowa, who introduced himself as the sixth son of Leo VI and heir to the Starlight Empire.
• Alfonso recognized Nuowa as a prince believed to have been killed by Leo VII about a hundred years earlier.
• Alfonso inferred that Nuowa wanted to overthrow Leo VII and that his own wish to earn merit could be fulfilled by supporting the prince's rebellion.
• Alfonso understood that he had committed himself to Nuowa's cause and cursed Duma's twisted arrangement.

Alfonso accepted Nuowa's investiture as a viscount and pledged to serve him, while Nuowa promised to help win the war before considering any move against the capital. Duma then explained Alfonso's demonic contract, revealing the Soul Returners as his demon servants and limiting him to commanding two hundred.

• Alfonso knelt before Nuowa, who invested him as a viscount, and Alfonso swore to serve him unto death.
• Nuowa told Alfonso he would fight the Skeleton Alliance before making any move against the imperial capital, for the Empire's sake.
• After Nuowa and Liya departed, Duma explained that Alfonso's contract granted him control of demon servants until his wish was fulfilled.
• Alfonso realized the four Soul Returners were the supposedly undying demon servants and accepted the revelation.
• Duma told Alfonso his command ability allowed him to control only two hundred servants, despite his rank as a thousand-man commander.

Duma collected Alfonso Lange’s supposed payment for the wish and left the Soul Returners allied with the viscount. Back in the Holy City, Duma revealed that he had only convinced Alfonso that half his lifespan was taken, leaving his actual lifespan unchanged.

• Duma told Alfonso Lange that the contract required him to lose half his lifespan, then used Demonic Whisper and psychological suggestion to make him believe the payment had been collected.
• Duma vanished from the military tent, and Alfonso rose with Saili’s help before welcoming the Soul Returners as true allies.
• [Practice More If You're Bad] and the other three newly promoted centurions pledged to serve Alfonso, while each player received notice that ten gold coins had been deducted for Duma’s appearance.
• Duma returned to the Holy City and explained the contract to [A Huan] and the others, who had been waiting for confirmation that their commission was complete.
• Duma said he could not take Alfonso’s life and had only made him believe his lifespan was shortened, wondering how long Alfonso would live under the psychological burden.

Duma accepted a Soul Returner’s suggestion for burning his target half to death, while [A Huan]’s friends gave him their entire payment. At Sandcastle Number Fourteen, Colin questioned [Western Sharpshooter] about his revolver as enemy Soul Returners approached, unaware that the weapon’s maker was the previous Grand Foundry Master.

• Duma stopped laughing and agreed to try burning his target half to death after a Soul Returner suggested it.
• [A Huan]’s four old comrades transferred all their payment to his account and joked that they had requisitioned his home.
• [Ginseng Rooster] and [Gill's Cuisine] arrived near Sandcastle Number Fourteen with Soul Returners after a night raid, and Colin ordered his soldiers to prepare for battle.
• Colin questioned [Western Sharpshooter] about his powerful revolver, hoping to learn how it had been made.
• [Western Sharpshooter] claimed the Grand Foundry Master had personally made the revolver for him as a reward, but the actual maker had been the previous Grand Foundry Master.

[Western Sharpshooter] concealed that his revolver was a psionic weapon and joined Colin’s defenders as an apparent enemy party arrived. [Ginseng Rooster] presented proof of [Aluode]’s recruitment and claimed his group had raided the Imperial camp, leaving Colin to welcome them despite lingering doubts.

• [Western Sharpshooter] had the Grand Foundry Master brothers modify his revolver into a psionic alienation staff with three power settings.
• After hearing that enemies were approaching, [Western Sharpshooter] joined Colin and the others on the outer wall without revealing the Soul Returners’ long-distance communications.
• [Ginseng Rooster] approached the sandcastle and said [Aluode] had recruited his group, offering a blood-red crystal as proof.
• [Ginseng Rooster]’s group displayed Imperial uniforms, armor, and three company banners, claiming they had raided an Imperial camp and set it on fire.
• Colin questioned the group’s story, then praised their success and asked about their losses.
• [Ginseng Rooster] said their captain had been killed and revealed [Lion Hidden in the Eyes]’s headless corpse, which made Colin accept the account more readily.

Colin welcomed the Soul Returner mercenaries into the sand fortress and appointed their leaders, [Ginseng Rooster] and [Gill's Cuisine], as cavalry captains. After [Ginseng Rooster] asked to receive a crystal cluster before speaking, he privately proposed that he become Colin’s adviser.

• Colin opened the fortress gates and invited the Soul Returners to join him as mercenaries.
• [Ginseng Rooster] recounted how their captain had died covering their retreat from an elite imperial unit.
• Colin appointed [Ginseng Rooster] and [Gill's Cuisine] as cavalry captains, and they pledged loyalty to him.
• [Ginseng Rooster] asked Colin to implant a crystal cluster in him before he revealed what he wanted to discuss.
• [Ginseng Rooster] privately told [Gill's Cuisine] that Colin needed trusted subordinates and proposed becoming his adviser.

[Ginseng Rooster] persuaded Colin to hire him as an adviser, then urged him to pursue a seat on the council. Colin doubted the prospect of rising so far through the ranks, while [Ginseng Rooster] privately mocked his timidity.

• Colin planted a restriction on [Ginseng Rooster] and allowed him to speak.
• [Ginseng Rooster] described his past schemes and offered to serve Colin as an adviser for the treatment of an ordinary squad leader.
• Colin made [Gill's Cuisine] captain of the new mercenaries and dismissed him from the room.
• [Ginseng Rooster] asked Colin whether he wanted to become a councilor and pointed to [Nether Crossing]'s recent rise as proof that the old rules could change.
• Colin doubted that he could climb the military hierarchy, and [Ginseng Rooster] privately criticized his lack of ambition.

Colin considered how to secure the loyalty of his Soul Returner mercenaries, while [Ginseng Rooster] advised him to rename them the Fang Soldiers and pursue higher office. In the southern Demon Realm, [Nether Crossing] assessed the dangerous Blood Corpses and began tracking Duke Wens with a drop of his True Blood after failing to find Rosalind.

• [Ginseng Rooster] persuaded Colin that Soul Returners would be loyal to the person who paid them and urged him to compete for promotion.
• [Ginseng Rooster] proposed renaming Colin's Soul Returner mercenaries the Fang Soldiers to make their bond seem less like a hired relationship.
• [Nether Crossing] led twenty thousand elite skeleton soldiers through three battles against Blood Corpses in the Demon Realm, winning each time but finding the enemies difficult to defeat.
• [Nether Crossing] concluded that the Demon Realm's Blood Corpses had grown stronger through decades of development and conflict among the three vampire lineages.
• Unable to find Rosalind, [Nether Crossing] used the drop of Duke Wens's True Blood provided by [Crown] to search for Wens.

[Nether Crossing] led the Skeleton Alliance deeper into the Demon Realm while dealing with signs that something was wrong with his condition. His scouts found two Blood Corpses fighting, and the chapter ended with the combatants demanding to know where Kailun was, even as one insisted he was Kailun.

• A scout told [Nether Crossing] that two groups of Blood Corpses were fighting southeast of the army and that four scouts had died observing them.
• [Nether Crossing] sent Chalco and two thousand elite skeletons to capture Blood Corpses and gave Chalco a crystalline spider lily signal to use if he encountered danger.
• [Nether Crossing] realized Chalco and the other senior officers had served [Giant Arms], and he reflected that their tactical advice felt redundant now that he had inherited [Giant Arms]'s abilities.
• [Nether Crossing] considered his recent memory lapses, sudden losses of consciousness, and uncharacteristic actions, but postponed investigating his condition.
• A tall female Blood Corpse demanded to know where Kailun was, while a shorter Blood Corpse claimed that he was Kailun, and the two attacked each other.

Two Rosalind Lineage Blood Corpses fought in a stalemate until Chalco and his skeleton army arrived and attacked. Chalco evaded the worms’ first charge and wounded one, but the two monsters prepared to charge him again.

• Two Rosalind Lineage marquises transformed into giant worms and fought by tearing at each other and regenerating.
• The worms broke apart to feed on the surrounding Blood Corpses, then recovered and resumed their fight.
• Chalco led a force of skeleton soldiers and cavalry down the hill, disrupting the Blood Corpses with a piercing shriek and a charge.
• The two worms set aside their feud and charged Chalco, who maneuvered around them on his skeletal horse and drove a rune-inscribed bone spear into one.
• One worm charged again with two spears embedded in its back while the other curled up and rolled down the slope toward Chalco.

Chalco fought two powerful Blood Corpses and used a spider lily to disrupt the battlefield, then countered the elongated worm’s regeneration with Psionic Energy. As the pill bug charged toward them, Chalco hauled the injured worm’s head up to force it to turn or be crushed alongside him.

• Chalco found that his weapons could not overcome the two Blood Corpses’ rapid regeneration.
• Chalco shattered the spider lily on his collarbone, causing thinking Blood Corpses to lose control and attack one another.
• Chalco formed Psionic Energy arms and destroyed the blood fragments that would have become blood worms.
• Chalco blinded and battered the elongated worm until it could no longer open its mouth, and it called to Kailun for help.
• As the pill bug charged like a steel coil, Chalco gripped the elongated worm and hauled its head upward to make it turn or collide with them.

Warlord Chalco fought to survive as the vampire monsters turned on one another, until Kailun revealed herself as Hall and killed Marquis Linda Rosalind. Hall finished devouring Linda as Chalco rallied the Skeleton Alliance’s surviving soldiers, leaving both sides gathering for another battle.

• Chalco and the worm monster beneath him narrowly avoided the charging pill bug, which crushed its way across the river valley.
• The pill bug abruptly turned and rolled over the worm monster, then stretched out and began devouring it.
• The dying Linda Rosalind pleaded with Kailun, who revealed that she was Hall and declared Linda to be her food and Kailun to be her subordinate.
• Hall, using Kailun’s body, devoured Linda and absorbed her vitality as Linda’s dependents began switching allegiance to Hall.
• Chalco rallied the surviving Skeleton Alliance soldiers around the battle standard, and the two forces gathered for another bloody battle.

Kailun, with Hall secretly inside her, stopped Chalco’s attack by surrendering and asking to meet his superior. After Chalco brought her to the skeletal councilor [Nether Crossing], she revealed that she knew he wanted a vampire grand duke.

• Kailun emerged from her worm form and offered to surrender, convincing Chalco to take her to his superior.
• Kailun sent the Blood Corpses away, while Chalco secretly dispatched scouts to search for their lair.
• Chalco brought Kailun before the skeletal councilor [Nether Crossing].
• Kailun told [Nether Crossing] that he wanted a vampire grand duke, and he asked how she knew.

[Nether Crossing] questioned Kailun about why his group had come to the Demon Realm, then used a blood-crystal wound to ensure she would guide him toward Rosalind. Meanwhile, Rosalind led her Gluttony Legion south across the Demon Realm and sensed the death of Linda, a vampire she had turned more than a century earlier.

• Kailun deduced that [Nether Crossing] sought Blood Corpses and learned he was looking for Grand Duke Wens.
• Kailun offered to betray her liege Rosalind in exchange for her life and pointed northwest toward Rosalind's true body.
• [Nether Crossing] wounded Kailun with a crystalline flower and promised her an extra reward if her information was true.
• Rosalind led nearly a million vampires across the northwestern Demon Realm, stripping the land of anything that could provide nutrients.
• Rosalind felt sorrow and murmured Linda's name after sensing that the vampire had died in the southern Demon Realm.

Rosalind investigated Linda’s death and confronted Hall, who admitted killing her to keep the Skeleton Alliance from capturing her alive. Hall said he had returned from outside the Demon Realm and offered to take Rosalind and the other grand dukes beyond it, leaving Rosalind to consider the Alliance’s pursuit of a grand duke.

• Rosalind ordered her Blood Corpses to turn toward the place where Linda died and gave Weber more true blood before sending him south with his troops to avenge his sister.
• Hall arrived on Rosalind’s platform disguised as an ordinary Blood Corpse, and he and Rosalind traded threats and accusations.
• Rosalind concluded that Hall had killed Linda, and Hall confirmed her suspicion.
• Hall said he had returned from outside the Demon Realm and intended to take Rosalind, York, and Wens out of it.
• Hall revealed that the Skeleton Alliance had come across the sea looking for a grand duke, and Rosalind questioned what they planned to do once they found one.

Hall informed Rosalind that the renewed conflict would begin as vampires could cross the sea, and she ordered her army to advance at full speed. In the Twin Kings Palace, Hall told Vanessa that Rosalind planned to take her army south through the Demon Realm, giving Vanessa a chance to ambush her.

• Hall warned Rosalind that the conflict was about to begin again, and Rosalind dismissed him by making him and his chair vanish.
• Rosalind ordered the vampire army to advance at full speed.
• Vanessa summoned Hall from his heavily guarded dungeon after learning he insisted on seeing her.
• Hall told Vanessa that Rosalind had been found and planned to lead her army south to find food.
• Hall argued that Wens and York would be unable to stop Rosalind, while Vanessa considered ambushing her on the few passable roads.

Hall returned to his dungeon after urging Vanessa to prepare a surprise for Rosalind, while he and the Immortal King discussed their imbalanced powers and their plan to hunt her. In Great Labyrinth City, Gray and the others investigated the machine spirit’s troubled core and opened the Mind Coffin containing Hall’s quarter, revealing him bound inside.

• Hall let the guards take him back to his underground cell after speaking with Vanessa, who agreed to prepare a surprise for Rosalind.
• Vanessa and the Immortal King discussed their injuries, the incomplete powers Vanessa had acquired, and how hunting Rosalind could restore their balance.
• The Great Labyrinth City’s machine spirit told Gray that something was wrong with its core, so Gray woke Nora and summoned Aiboke and Balund to investigate.
• Aiboke and Balund examined the two Mind Coffins beneath the city and took precautions before opening the coffin linked to the machine spirit’s heart.
• Aiboke opened the Mind Coffin and revealed Hall bound inside.

Hall revealed that Rosalind, the Gluttonous Lady, would fight the Bone Councilor [Nether Crossing] in the Fractured Mountains in a week, prompting the Great Labyrinth City to convene a meeting and Gray to contact the Theocracy. Hall then offered the information to Ed in exchange for freedom, but Ed refused and offered only a chance at it.

• Hall warned the Great Labyrinth City that Rosalind's vampire legion would reach the Fractured Mountains in a week and urged them to act against one of the Demon Realm's Three Calamities.
• Balund ordered the Machine Spirit to summon the city's Grand Artisans and generals and told Gray to contact the Theocracy.
• Ed emerged from a cocoon at the High-Quality Charcoal Processing Plant after Hall repeatedly summoned him and asked what was happening.
• Hall told Ed that Rosalind and the Bone Councilor [Nether Crossing] were about to fight a major battle in the Fractured Mountains.
• Hall asked Ed for freedom in exchange for the information, but Ed said it could only earn him a chance at freedom.